Tue Nov 27, 2012 at 10:46:02 AM EST

So, here in Michigan we run our elections through our local clerks. This isn't news to anyone reading this blog, because you all know it. The clerks run the elections, and are responsible for voting initiatives. Most of us are familiar with some of the things Camille Sabaugh has done in Macomb County to encourage greater voting, and we all know that a bunch of local clerks revolted against Ruth Johnson's redundant voter application citizenship question. In fact, this was one of the reasons why we streamlined the number of days on which we can hold elections, and why earlier this year a couple folks suggested it was time to amend the U.S. Constitution so that municipalities in Thad McCotter's district didn't have to shell out money for a special election to replace him.

Some voters in Lansing got an early opportunity to vote that others in the state didn't have, and some Republicans say that bonus day for absentee voting looked suspiciously like a maneuver to boost turnout for Democrats.

The "conspiracy" involves Lansing's city clerk handing out absentee ballots to people, and allowing those people to fill them out and turn them in, in one convenient location. The clerk informs rumpled newspaperman Jack Spencer that the event was open to anyone, to which a Republican strategist said that it wasn't. Meanwhile, the Secretary of State's office said nothing illegal happened as long as the people voting qualified for absentee ballots. Probably if any conservatives showed up, they'd have been whisked away to FEMA camps for re-education.

How many people were able to exercise their franchise that day? A couple of hundred ... the exact margin by which Obama won Michigan and Proposal 2 passed. Dastards!

The real issue here, and by real issue I mean what this tells us as opposed to the conspiratorial fantasies of rumpled newspaperman Jack Spencer, is why we aren't doing more of this.